Poland says fire at Starlink station is sabotage as Denmark warns of rising Russian threat

Poland says fire at Starlink station is sabotage as Denmark warns of rising Russian threat

A fire at a Starlink satellite station in central Poland was a deliberate "act of sabotage", the government has said.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said the blaze in the Masovian Voivodeship province was "deliberately designed to disable the station... disrupting internet access for various institutions, including the Ukrainian army".

He told Polish public broadcaster TVP Info that an investigation was under way, but "many indications suggest" the incident fits into a "new Russian doctrine of attack". The Kremlin has not commented.

At the same time, Denmark's intelligence service released a new threat assessment saying it expects Russia to intensify hybrid warfare in the coming months.

It said an attack remained "highly unlikely" but warned of "a low but growing risk" that Russia could carry out a limited military attack against Nato countries.

In recent weeks, several European Nato members have said Russia may be preparing attacks to test their commitment to supporting Ukraine, which Moscow denies.

Hybrid warfare, or hybrid attacks, are broad terms usually used to describe non-military methods intended to pressure and destabilise an adversary - for example cyberattacks, sabotage or misinformation.

Proxies are often used to carry out such attacks, and Russia always denies involvement, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

The fire at the state-owned Polish satellite station broke out on Wednesday night in Wola Krobowska. It remains operational.

The deputy prime minister said it sends internet traffic through Poland to countries including Ukraine, and uses SpaceX systems that provide connectivity via Starlink terminals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said Moscow does not intend to attack Nato states.

Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was Europe talking about preparing for war, adding: "If Europe attacks Russia, it will be a completely different war [from that in Ukraine], and it will be very short."

Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.

In Ukraine, Kharkiv and Kyiv suffered the worst of Russia's overnight attacks into Thursday.

In Kharkiv, six people were killed and twelve others injured in a Russian strike on a farm in the village of Stara Hnylytsia, Ukraine's state emergency services said.

It said they were agricultural workers sorting vegetables, with the head of the Kharkiv region adding that four were women.

In Kyiv, two people were killed and eight others injured overnight, emergency services said. More than 50 civilian facilities were also damaged in the city, including a maternity building.

The hospital's director said a woman gave birth to a baby boy in a shelter during that attack, adding: "Even on such a terrible night, life goes on."

Russia's defence ministry said it had struck Ukrainian defence facilities, logistics and telecom centres, as well as vessels used by the military.

Moldova's president said four Russian drones crossed into its airspace, with at least one exploding, while Romania's defence ministry said one drone crashed on its territory.

Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine have become more destructive in recent months because of new jet-powered drones, which are harder to shoot down.

Kyiv is racing to develop low-cost weapons that can counter them, as the missiles and fighter jets it has to fight them are too expensive.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, "we need ballistic interceptors to protect lives" and called on the US to help.

He said Putin needed to be stopped from continuing the war and "spreading this evil further", adding: "Putin is always looking for someone who can help him kill more, kill more people for every kilometre of land."

He said Ukraine would seek to target the Russian energy sector over the winter.

The Ukrainian president's remarks came as Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev travelled to the US to meet Trump administration officials, including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Reuters reported, citing two sources.

Russia's Lavrov told the UN Security Council on Wednesday there would be no pause in the war.